Increasingly strict environmental demands are being made for fuel filling stations. One of the sources of contamination by fuel is leakage of the filling nozzle. Existing fuel filling stations are faced with large investment to prevent leakage of fuel into the groundwater. When it occurs leakage of the nozzle also causes much inconvenience for users, particularly for owners of diesel vehicles, because of damage to clothing, footwear and the like in the form of stains. Particularly in the case of diesel fuel a penetrating odor is further disseminated by evaporated liquid which is unhealthy and contaminates the environment.
In the Netherlands Patent Application No. NL-A-88.00959 is described a design for a filling nozzle which is provided with a closing valve close to an outflow end--but not against the forward edge thereof--of the fuel nozzle. This filling nozzle has not however found application in practice since it is a wholly new design of filling nozzle entailing considerable investment.